-1 LA race?

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, for my part, I've rewritten some of the "weak" races for games in which I wanted to allow for "nontraditional race choices" ... Goblins and Kobolds, in particular.

Usually, I say: "These races are weaker than normal." and I give them a few bonuses. Goblins get a free racial feat called Bolt and Kobolds get a +2 Charisma.

Bolt basically reads that if any attack brings you to 1/2 or less of your current HP total, you may, as an immediate action, change your initiative to the next count up, even if you've already acted in the round. The only action you can take, however, is to drop everything held and take the Withdraw maneuver.

"Run away! Run awaaaaaaaaay!!!"

--fje

 

[Jack Simth]

Basic problems with a negative LA race:

Class levels are valuable.

With a -1 LA....

Fighters, Barbarians, and other combat-centric classes have an extra HD of class features - a Con penalty is soaked up by the extra HP form the "free" level, a Strength penalty by the extra point of BAB, an Int penalty by the extra level's worth of skill points, et cetera.

Ditto with rogues/bards/monks/other skill based classes.

Caster-types are particularly interesting - with a -4 penalty to Wisdom, you can make a very useful Cleric in Point-buy with an extra level to play with. After all, he gets his highest-level spells a full level before anyone else..... just put maximum points into Wis to soak the penalty, and play to make the appropriet paripat.

Perhaps a -2 to everything... maybe.

 

[Hairfoot]

The PHB half-orc comes pretty close.

 

[balam_br]

I use some kind of negative LA... The weak races (goblin, kobold, whatever...) can start the game with one additional level of NPC classes, usually warrior and expert.

 

[sukael]

The incarnate construct template, from Savage Species, gives -2 LA.

(Of course, then you could just apply it to a 2-HD tiny flying construct...)

 

[Iku Rex]

The incarnate construct template, from Savage Species, gives -2 LA.

(minimum 0)

 

[Deset Gled]

Actually, I think one of the answers posted above works quite well. -LA can be balanced on a creature with Racial HD.

Granted, such a creature would still need to have wretched stats to qualify for a -LA, but it is concievable.

True, but that is also why I specified that a negative ECL was impossible to balance, not a negative LA.

To balance something with a negative LA, I think you would need to have at least four or five racial hit dice to start off with. A 2HD monster with a -2 LA seems like a bad idea, but a 4HD moster with a -1 LA sounds like it could be balanced with the proper penalties.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

That desire is a normal one. This is D&D not WoD:Freak Legion.

Sez you. Wanting to include kobolds or goblins as PC races hardly makes it into Freak Legion. Perhaps not everyone wants to run a standard human-centric fantasy game. Perhaps it might be nice to be able to do it without having to rewrite all the interesting low-CR creatures to make them viable choices.

A DM who desires a party of freaks who should be run out of town or lynched in a normal settlement could easily lower or compensate characters for higher LA’s.

Man, that's just such a bizarre hang-up. If I want to allow kobolds in my campaign, suddenly my campaign is made up of freaks. And of course, every NPC will want to kill off the PCs just for being non-PHB species. Except that they won't, because kobolds would be normal to have around, much like goblins are normal to see in Eberron or lizardfolk in Ptolus.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Or just to give low-level characters humanoid monsters to fight who didn't pose much of a threat for their level.

Actually, and I don't have a link, someone in development was quoted saying that all the level-adjusted races and savage species progressions were designed to be weaker than an equivalent-level PHB race. It was explained as a deliberate bias toward PHB races as an attempt to control the racial distribution of D&D.

 

[MarkB]

kobolds are -1 CR, but not LA.

Does that mean you have to pay XP every time you kill one?